Facility Manager - Life of a superhero

It's not an easy job to maintain a complex facility like office premises, hotel, shopping mall or hospitals and to manage all these complexities there stands a superhero call Facility manager. In contrast to commercial buildings, where there are less frequent changes, facilities with high public traffic will experience upgrades frequently and as a result, the data keeps on changing. Here comes our superhero the Facility manager into action and maintains accurate asset record irrespective of more data points entering the facility.

As per the survey conducted in alliance with the facility management association of Australia, increasing operational control and minimizing risk are important aspects that are being missed by the industry. The survey clearly proved that there is a gap between what needed by facility management professionals and current practices to the information system. Vigorously, storing and capturing info, finding and retrieving info, making collective information to multiple parties comes out to be the top concerns. Severely, many of the facility managers are involved in legal conflicts for inaccurate and lost info. Currently, only 40% of FM info is stored electronically and rest are entered in shared network drives, spreadsheets, even in filing cabinets. Whereas industry is planning to hike this electronic storage by up to 80% at least.

Nowadays, Facility manager has to manage the flood of Data by keeping track of his/her asset maintenance record. Facility manager needs to manage an ample amount of data. And in the below section we are introducing several of these top five asset maintenance concerns.

Managing Time

Every day Facility manager has to manage tons of tasks. There are emails to reply, budget meeting to attend, vendors to consult. Along with all this, there are management and employee issues that also needed to be sorted out. All this also comes up to a facility manager stating "kindly do the needful by EOD", managing time thus becomes a big challenge for an FM manager. Its planning and prioritizing done by concern in order to stay on the top of the game.

Managing Security

One of the most important challenges for an FM manager is to tackle security threats and breaches. This challenge of security always keeps them on high alert and future-ready for any such issue. In most of the organization much remains to be done with regard to the emergency evacuation process. The facility manager needs to be updated in terms of proper disaster recovery plan. Its all the responsibility FM manager, in the end, to save thousands of lives in case of security threat.

An accelerating performance with fewer resources

In today's scenario, its impossible to find an organization that doesn't want to make the best out of the few resources present. An FM manager then faces pressure from everyone in the facility to perform at high levels. With limited resources, he/she has to find the most effective way to perform. It's not an easy task to perform high with the owing of the limited number of resources. An ample number of resources will allow improving service delivery but with limited resources, FM manager is generally limited to what can be afforded by organization thus altering service delivery.

Cost cutting

The finances of a company are boosted by the FM manager by controlling costs. Almost, every company asks FM manager to save their money and help increase revenue. If one can't control the costs for a company, there is always a doubt for his/her existence. The two most trusted ways to control cost are proper tracking of inventory and assets along with increasing the lifetime of equipment( computers, ac's, boilers, HVAC systems many more). Energy conservation is another aspect that is managed by FM manager in order to save a big amount for the company.

Updated for changing regulatory and compliance standards.

Another tough challenge for an FM manager is to stay on top of the regulatory and compliance standard. He/She need to alongside with leading improvements and industry changes and ensuring that you (and your staff) set aside time and the budget for continuing training in new improved ways of compliance is key. This can be done by attending seminars, workshops or even by grabbing online certifications. Facility manager tackles this challenge by staying updated and informed.

Thanks,

Narendar Singh.